This was a Halloween themed show at the Key Club, and it was a total blast. This won't be super detailed because I need some sleep, but I'll do my best. I've been doing like 90% of the gig reviews on Metal Assault since Andrew Metalhead had to return to India, but my friend filled in for me because I've got midterms and shit this week. She ran into guest list problems that ended up being total bullshit. Basically, the Key Club never handed off Ghoul's guest list to the box office and bouncers.

We ended up finally getting in after buying tickets about halfway into Witchaven's set. These guys always kill live, and his time they had a burlesque dancer onstage for a couple songs. The dancer was kind of stupid, but she ctually entered the pit and proceeded to actually fuck some suckers up, so that was neat to see.

Next up were the Mentors, the original offensive rock band. They were as awesome as the last time I saw them, and my friend was cracking up the entire time. The songs are awesome, the lyrics are just great and their stage persona is hilarious. Basically the Mentors are the best band ever, with or without El Duce.

I caught up with Henry and Lerby after the set- they know me as a bay area dude, so they were stoked to hear that I'm back in LA haha. I mentioned to Henry that we should do an interview sometime soon and he said "dude, let's just do it now!" and he, my friend and I went to a backstageish area to do an improvised off the cuff interview. There's a lot of cool stuff that he mentioned in the works, but the big one you guys will like is that Witchaven are working on that I'm sure you all will love. It was a great interview for being improvised completely, and Henry was smashed for the whole thing haha. I didn't have any idea until he just casually mentioned at the very end "I am so wasted right now. Like extremely wasted. Damn!" Ross Sewage walked by right in the middle of the interview and at first thought he was interrupting, but then I just yelled "What the fuck's up Ross!" and he remembered me from the Impaled interview and said "Oh shit, good to see you man!" and hi-fived me in the middle of our interview. It was pretty badass haha.

My friend and I then found Sean McGrath by the merch booth and explained the guest list situation (dude's also Ghoul's TM) and he was extremely gracious and nice about it. Even though she tried to tell him it was fine, he insisted on compensating my friend for the ticket she paid for. It was definitely one of the nicest things I've seen someone do for a journalist, and she tried to pay him back in a way by using the money he gave her on a Ghoul shirt. I then got to catch up with Ross- we chatted about his recent engagement (Me- "Ross I heard you're engaged, congrats dude!" Ross- "WOOOOO, FUCK YEAH DUDE I'M SO EXCITED!") some studio nerd talk and VHOL, John Cobbett's new project. Both he and Sean loved the way the Impaled interview I did with them turned out, I put a lot of work into it to make sure that their sense of humor came through in the text and I think they could tell that.

We then headed up to see the rest of Beowulf's set. The songs themselves were cool, but I really didn't like the vocals. The singer's weird gangsta speeches (this was a middle aged white guy with Willie Nelson pigtails saying "we're OG" every other sentence) were pretty stupid. The hardcore punk songs they played we're really cool, but some of their other songs just didn't sound that great.

Dr. Know fucked my couch. They were no bullshit, no frills, just ass kicking crossover. Kyle Toucher is a beast on both guitar and vocals, and all the songs were just fucking awesome. Even the old songs sounded infinitely more badass live. I checked out their studio stuff after the show and I couldn't help but think "Fuck, this was so much better live." The crowd was insane for the whole set, and went apeshit during Mr. Freeze. If they ever play near you, go see them. In Kyle's words "We were awesome, you had a good fucking time, see ya!" This was probably one of the best sets I've seen all year.

Ghoul were a ton of fun as always. My friend had no idea what to expect from them, but she loved the music, Ross and Sean's comedy and he stage shenanigans. They changed the set up a little from the Tidal Wave show. The kids went crazy for them, and during As Your Casket Closes kids were crowdsurfing and stage diving left and right. Ross even crowdsurfed at the very end just for fun. Having a packed house definitely upped the energy level, Ghoul were a lot more active and energetic than they were at Tidal Wave.

When the show ended my friend and I chilled with Lerby from Witchaven for a bit and soon ran into Sean again afterwards and we talked about Impaled for a little bit. So far no immediate plans for them to hit LA sadly. Then my friend and I finally headed home and pretty much talked about how awesome the bands were. That's always the sign of a kickass show IMO. It was her first time seeing all of them while I had seen Witchaven, Mentors and Ghoul before so it was a lot of fun to see her reactions to them haha. We both agreed that Dr. Know was a giant pile of awesome though, so I really hope it won't be long before I see them again.